Educate, Check-In, and Read During Quarantine

July was very eye-opening for me and it forced me to grow in a lot of ways. For the first time since the quarantine began, I had the desire to read again. I finished three books this month, and if you follow my bookstagram and Youtube, get ready for some content coming down the pipeline. My book drought was real and I am so happy it’s over. It was hard to focus on reading when I had so many things going on. But what I soon realized, is that I could escape in a really great fiction book and everything would feel okay.

This month I also watched so many virtual conferences, summits, Linkedin Learning classes, and masterclasses. I think my mind is going to explode with all of the new things I am learning (and this is a good thing). I have been taking so many notes, I am almost on notebook #3. I am also finishing videos that I start and not letting my self-diagnosed ADD get in the way. Some of the powerful things I learned:

1. Perfect work is that career or business that we know, that we know, that we know, we are meant to do. It’s that thing that lights us up. It’s the risk we are willing to take. It’s legacy. – Renessa Boley Lane
2. Before the global pandemic hit, multicultural women were leaving – or planning to leave  corporate America in record numbers, citing bias, and lack of support as main culprits. – Multicultural Women’s Conference
3. The slave plantations that were developed in the Mississippi Valley were huge and resembled much more closely modern multinational corporations than we often think. It was a complex hierarchy filled with Mid-level managers and workers who reported into other workers who reported into other workers. Data tracking techniques were developed so they knew how much labor and money went into producing each veil of cotton. – 1619 Project Podcast

There’s so much more to share and I encourage each of you reading this to use this time to learn something new and help it inform your present and your future. However, I can’t stress enough, the 1619 Project Podcast was phenomenal, mindblowing, and educational, and I encourage you to listen. I am probably going to do a video on it in the near future because WHOA.

My TV journey is still going strong. I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries. My favorite, I must say was John Lewis: Good Trouble and The Rachel Divide. John Lewis was a civil rights legend and he passed a week after I watched his documentary. It was so powerful. He was really a good person, that had a penchant for chickens and fighting for civil rights. During bloody Sunday, he received a concussion at the hands of white officers  and he did so much for blacks in America, especially when it came to voting rights.

The Rachel Divide was also sad but eye-opening. I spent so many years judging Rachel Dolezal because that’s what everyone else was doing, but I never took the time to learn and understand her story and for that, I am ashamed. She’s been through a lot and obviously struggles with her identity, but the treatment she’s received was very harsh. I wish more of us had grace for her, including myself. I wish more of us took the time to understand the plight of others before judging with haste. As far as TV goes, I was hooked to Blood and Water on Netflix. Very good series based in South Africa and I can’t wait for season 2.

A lot of people in my life celebrated big wins, so I was happy that I could support them in some way, whether it was attending their event or sending a gift. Giving feels amazing. A few people checked in on me too which was so cool. I was able to connect with folks I haven’t talked to in ages over zoom. I also asked people that I’ve never met to zoom chats to get to know more about who they are and what they do. I joined a Chat & Chew event, that my friend Kadia has been asking me to join for over a year now, and it was really amazing. I also went to my first career coaching session. Other updates? My skin journey is not going great. My hair journey is going okay. I also launched my closet on Poshmark. If you’re interested in supporting, check it out here.

Finally, I started therapy. I had to confront the fact that I was functional and depressed, which I talk about here. I embarked on a journey to finding a black woman Christian therapist, that would serve as a preemptive measure for me during this time. Creating a list of black therapist that was in-network for me was a project in itself. I did so much research to land on the therapist that I have now. So far, so good. Therapy is helping me get back to myself and also to speak up and set boundaries.

Well, until next month.